Why did OpenAI fire Sam Altman? I deep dived the Microsoft drama so you don't have to
16I deep-dived the Open AI - Sam Altman - Microsoft situation so you don’t have to!
Sam Altman was ousted as OpenAI’s CEO by the board on Friday, and hired by Microsoft on Monday as CEO of a new advanced AI research team
There’s a lot of names and nuance here so bare with me:
Quick history of OpenAI - Sam Altman along with numerous others including Elon Musk founded the nonprofit in 2015, saying “unlike Google and other tech giants, it would not be driven by commercial incentives.”
In 2019 OpenAI transitioned from a pure non-profit to a non-profit governing a capped for profit subsidiary (meaning profit would be capped at 100 times any investment, allowing the company to seek investment from venture funds and grant employees stakes of the company and compete with big corporations that can afford more compensation for the world’s top minds). On November 30, 2022 OpenAI launched their chatbot ChatGPT which has revolutionized the tech world and added pressure to the AI race.
So with all this success and history under his belt why was Sam Altman fired?
According to the NYtimes the board, and board member “Ilya Sutskever, in particular, was worried that Mr. Altman was too focused on building OpenAI’s business while not paying enough attention to the dangers of A.I.” and the board released a memo on Sunday stating “Sam’s behavior and lack of transparency … undermined the board’s ability to effectively supervise the company”
With the firing taking everyone by surprise including Sam Altman and OpenAI’s biggest stakeholder, Microsoft with over a $13 billion investment, chaos immediately ensued.
Fellow founder and president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, quit out of solidarity and according to the NY Times by Friday night he and Sam were pitching a new AI start-up to investors
Out of 770 employees working at openAI 670 of them signed a letter threatening to leave the company if the board was not replaced
INCLUDING one of the board member’s involve in the ousting Ilya Sutskever! Yes the guy that voiced Altman was not worried enough about the dangers of AI!
He also regretted it enough to make a remorseful statement on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying “I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
To which Sam replied with three heart emojis!
Not wanting to risk losing Altman and Brockman to their competition including Google, Amazon, and other AI competitors, Microsoft announced on Monday that they have hired the men to lead their new advanced AI research team
It’s unclear how many of OpenAI’s now disgruntled employees will follow suit and continue their former leadership under their new roles at Microsoft, as many already have,
But one thing is clear, Microsoft stock is benefitting in an already up 138% YTD year it has hit a new all time high, with a 2% Day over Day increase since the announcement
It’ll be interesting to see how OpenAI operates moving forward, though the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella has assured “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners,”
Is it possible that this was just a severely tragically bungled hostile takeover by OpenAI or is it something more calculated than that? Online conspiracy theorists have speculated that this was a premeditated plan executed by Microsoft to absorb OpenAI while skirting around SEC regulations
The transfer of power from a nonprofit entity to an extremely for profit entity of Microsoft is certainly advantageous in cutting financial red tape
It does also allow the team to proceed with AI advancements at a faster rate with less pushback for caution, per Sutskever’s concerns of potential AI dangers
& Incidentally this has all gone down just a week after Microsoft announced it has built its own custom AI chip that can be used to train large language models and potentially avoid a costly reliance on Nvidia…
Personally though, I think this truly was just a clash of egos and visions for the future of Open AI because it is way too messy
What do you think about the whole situation? Tell me in the comments below and follow for more tech and gaming videos, but most importantly have a beautiful day